


swift as a shadow, short as any dream

by cirque



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, Cottingley Fairies Hoax RPF, Original Work
Genre: (mostly), 1919 - Freeform, Crueltide, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Don't Have to Know Canon, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Logic, Iambic Pentameter, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 06:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21423874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: In 1917 England, cousins Elsie and Frances claimed to have taken photographs of fairies in a mystical stream behind their garden.The photographs were fake; the fairies found them anyway.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 42
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	swift as a shadow, short as any dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deepdarkwaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/gifts).

> [Here is a short synopsis of the hoax and its story.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5Tndr2aUU)  
I'll add beta information after reveals.

_ And pleasant is the fairy land, _

_ But, an eerie tale to tell, _

_ Ay at the end of seven years _

_ We pay a tithe to hell; _

Tam Lin, traditional ballad

_ Madam, now an end to make, _

_ Deign a simple Gift to take: _

_ Only for the Fairies sake, _

_ Who about you still shall wake. _

The Satyr by Ben Jonson

**1919**

The photographs were fake. It seemed silly, somehow, how real they looked, when one was expecting to see the truth. Elsie already had her father’s camera; it seemed like a good idea. Two years back, tired of not finding the real thing, Elsie and her cousin took scissors to a book of flower fairy illustrations. They placed them naturally in the area surrounding the beck and took photographs with her father’s camera, which he had loaned to them. They hadn’t meant for things to get out of hand, but now everyone in her mother’s theosophy group had seen them and taken them for truth. Everyone who saw them said how real they looked. It was thrilling, somewhat. Elsie was quiet and timid; she had never convinced anyone of anything before.

That Sunday, two years later, found the pair of them down by the water, searching for adventure in the form of fairy creatures, as they had many times before. Elsie felt a little unwelcome, here at the scene of the crime. It seemed disingenuine of them to search for real fairies after they’d made the fakes. There, where they had propped the purple fairy; there the little gnome - she half expected to see the thin paper still hanging there. Either way, they hadn't given up. They still tramped down to the beck behind the garden as often as they could, in search of adventure. 

Frances had her good bow in, though her mother maintained it was only for church. Elsie would never be seen dead in something garish as a bow, she thought it was awful _ frou-frou _. It was the fashion in France to wear floppy hats, the kind Elsie pointed out to mother in Debenhams and hoped madly that mother might decide to buy for her, but Elsie had rotten luck with that. They both wore their dresses with lace at the ankles and puffed petal sleeves - their fairy-hunting dresses, for fairies they were hunting.

Frannie had no problem getting the hem of her dress wet. She kicked off her slippers clumsily and plunged her feet into the fast-flowing water, with not a care at all for splashing Elsie, who huffed and rolled her eyes.

Elsie supposed she must have been childish once, but it was an awfully long time ago. Frannie was eleven, which seemed a nightmarish age to Elsie, all unkempt hair and skinned knees. Elsie was eighteen, an altogether more reasonable age, and she could scarcely remember being little.

They were cousins regardless, and their mothers expected them to play together, even though Elsie insisted she did not ‘play’ anymore, but it was no good. 

“Be gentle, Fran,” Elsie said. “You’ll scare the fairies away.”

“They’re not so easily frightened,” her cousin replied. “They’re too boisterous for all that.” After a moment’s thought, Frances turned back. “Do you suppose fairies have wars?”

The War was all anyone ever talked of these days. “I suppose they do. All civilised creatures must.” 

“I’ll ask them,” Frances said.

“Very well. Can you see any?”

Frances waded to the other side of the water and splashed her feet around a good deal, before clambering out of the stream and onto the grassy bank on the far side. There was a decent-sized holly bush that crept up on the water, and a woolly willow farther back. Elsie had learned how to identify them in school once, the soft textured shoots of the willow flush against the palm of her hand. The summer air carried with it the scent of nearby juniper, and Frannie pulled back some of the willow branches, leaning in good and proper.

“Are they there?” Elsie called, getting annoyed now.

“I can’t see anything.”

“You’ve scared them off!”

“I’ve not!”

Elsie reached down and gathered her cousin’s discarded slippers and arranged them neatly side by side, before adding her own shoes. She stomped through the chilly water and came to stand beside Frances.

“Check in the holly,” Frances said.

Elsie felt that Fran was being rather bossy, but let it be as she gingerly peeled back the spiky shrubbery. She disturbed a little fieldfare and it skittered away from her with an angry peck aimed at her knees, and Elsie staggered backwards at the shock.

“I thought you had one then!” Frances laughed.

Elsie laughed too, the giggle rippling through her like the pull of the water, a laugh so full it echoed around them.

Until she saw it.

The fairy, not six inches tall, resplendent on the holly branch.

“Frannie!” But the word would not come out, only a harsh rasp. “Frances! Come see!”

Her cousin gave her a look over her shoulder, and then followed her line of sight, and she gasped audibly.

“Hello!” Frances said, her voice girlish and high with the shock.

Elsie moved back to stand beside her cousin a healthy twelve feet from the creature. It was dithering there, its papery wings catching the sunlight in an odd manner. Its skin was grey and pulled tight over its features; its arms were too long for its body. Elsie did not much like what she saw; it seemed a far cry from the illustrations they had so carefully cut, its eyes being paler, a terrible colour, the blue of thin ice.

“Hello,” said Frannie again. “My name’s Frances. And this is my cousin Elsie. Hello!” She waved eagerly at the creature, which didn’t appear to be paying any attention. Its horrid watery eyes were fixed on Elsie’s own. It blinked, slow and sun-drunk, pulled itself upright and hopped from the branch down onto the ground. In one smooth movement, its wings flickered apart like those of a moth, and it flew up to Elsie’s eye level and remained there, treading the warm summery air.

“I don’t suppose it knows any English.” Frances sounded disappointed.

Elsie could only swallow air and gawp at the feathery creature. They had hunted for fairies a dozen or more times; never had she actually expected to find one. Fairies were the thing of stories, tales told to girls as young as Frannie. But here - by the beck! - a tiny little figurine made from fine porcelain was hovering not two feet from her very own nose. It looked altogether more _ wrong _than the cut-out pictures; it looked altogether more cruel.

“Frances,” she finally croaked. “Come away!”

“What - no! You’re not afraid, are you?” Frances was only a girl, who still believed in stories, and the seven long years between them stretched out, as Elsie tried to pull her cousin back, away from the devilish creature.

“Frances.” Its voice was like two milk bottles clinking together, off in the distance on the morning rounds.

“It understands, how divine!” Frances shrugged Elsie off and reached out a hand towards it.

“Don’t touch it!” Elsie exclaimed, but too late - her foolish cousin let the creature alight on her fingertip for just the briefest of moments. “Fran, get away!”

Frances turned and rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner. “Calm down. I think it likes me.” The creature fluttered away, as though Elsie’s shout had frightened it somewhat.

_ Good, _ she thought. “We have to go back inside.”

Frances groaned. “This is what we came here to see, isn’t it?” It seemed to have been an age since they set out in their best dresses to hunt for fairies. “No one will ever believe us this time. We ought to have brought your father’s camera. Run back and get it, won’t you?”

Elsie didn’t much fancy the thought of leaving her cousin alone with the little creature. She worried perhaps that it might spirit her away. "No." She couldn't help how petulant she sounded. 

"Imagine,” Frances said. "We messed about with those cut-outs when all along there really were fairies here!" 

It seemed too uncanny a coincidence. Elsie didn't like it one bit. "I'm the elder, and I say we're leaving."

She pulled her cousin by the sleeve, her index finger looping between the lace, and as she did the little creature became more animated, the lucent wings opening and closing a dozen times a heartbeat. It reached a hand towards them and Elsie could see its razor-sharp nails. 

Fran gasped. 

Elsie couldn't take her eyes from its wormy glistening lips, the red of a perfect apple. She cleared her throat and tried to sound brave. "We'll be going now. Goodbye." Her voice was tremulous and telltale. 

She was aware suddenly of a dizzying sensation followed by a tug behind her navel. The beck had disappeared. She was standing in a dark clearing, and freezing cold - maddeningly so, for it had been August mere seconds ago. 

And worse: Frances was gone. 

"Hello!" she called. "Fran!" 

There were dozens upon dozens of them. She heard the frantic buzzing of many bees, echoing around her head, left then right, over and over, until she felt her vision clear and she could see that it wasn't bees after all. Each one was as pale and pinched as the first, a gathering of furious flickering wings. And they were angry at _ her _. 

Elsie sobbed dryly. "Where's my cousin?" 

They didn't seem in the mood to answer her. They continued gathering around her, more and more, the cacophony of their wings driving her mad. She cast about her for a weapon. On the mulchy floor: a snapped branch, the width of her forearm. Elsie snatched it up and swung it at the creatures. She was a fair shot at rounders. They always picked her first at school.

"Please! We haven't done anything to you." 

A voice, like fingernails down a chalkboard, high-pitched and echoing through the classroom. Its voice, not in her ears, but in her _ head _. “Call me Thirsk, this is our fairy abode. We have transported you through magic means. Our grievance is but a simple thing: you humans and your photographic machines.”

“What?!” Elsie whipped her head about frantically. “The camera?”

“The camera with which you made our image - the sudden exposure of our secretive lives.”

“You’re really _ fairies _?” They didn’t look as she had expected, frightsome as they were. “You’re angry because we faked your photo?” It had been a bit of fun, that was all. Elsie gripped her ear with her free hand. The voice was like the screech of a cat, as high pitched and as feral.

The creature she supposed was Thirsk separated from the mass. It flickered close to her. It wore a garland of wildflowers braided around its body. Its eyes were wide with fury and she felt hot tears flow freely down her cheeks. 

“The pictures are no trifling thing for you and yours are bringing focus on our kind. Retract your claims and we will let you be. Listen well, human, take my words to mind.”

“All right. I promise we’ll tell people they were fakes; is that what you want? Nobody really believes us anyway, you needn’t worry. Please let me go! And where is Frances?”

“Your cousin is our prisoner until you do as we have asked; it’s only fair.”

Prisoner? Elsie gasped. Frances must be so frightened. “That isn’t fair at all! She’s innocent - we both are!”

Thirsk flew rapid circles around her; its tiny body became but a blur. 

Frightened for her cousin, Elsie hit out at the little monster, trying to bat it away with her branch. She yelped with the effort. It flew backwards with an almighty buzz.

And all at once they were gone, leaving Elsie alone in the cold, dark clearing.

She wiped at her cheeks. It would do no good for either of them to dwell on tears. She needed to find Frances and get out of here, wherever here was. She surveyed her surroundings. The clearing was small, about fifteen yards in diameter, and she was surrounded on all sides by thick tree trunks, their branches twining together above her head to form a dark canopy. She could scarcely see a foot in front of her, the light was so sparse. 

“Frances!” she called, with little hope at getting a reply. “Frances, are you there?” At once she fell silent, suddenly aware of other creatures that might be listening. She could feel their glittering eyes on her even though she could not see them. She raised her weapon higher, despite her aching arms. The skin at the back of her neck felt pimpled and she shuddered. How many of them were there? 

Elsie looked up, searching for the sun. It was hidden beyond the canopy. She needed to get her bearings, but every step she took into the grim forest felt even weirder, even further from warmth. She walked until the trees surrounded her on all sides, great-reaching oak and sycamores drooping with seed pods. The path she trod through shrub and tangling weeds was threadbare grass, and all about her the air seemed thick with impatience, and though she saw nothing, she felt the creeping fairies at her back. 

She reached out a hand to steady herself, and the tree trunk she grasped was slimy with mould, a thick green covering that stuck to her hand. She grimaced. She wanted desperately to call for Fran, but she was too afraid to even raise a whisper. Each breath she took was an effort, and her lungs screamed out for relief.

Above her head, a pair of winged sycamore seeds dislodged from their branch, and Elsie gasped to see them float upwards, rather than down. They went up and up between the canopy until she could no longer follow them. She wiped the tree slime on the back of her dress and began to cry. She hoped that Frances was all right, that she wasn’t too afraid, and she hoped beyond hope for home. She hoped for her mother, and her father too, even if he would be angry when she admitted the photographs were fake. It felt silly to think they had ever had the idea to create the pictures, as though it were an entirely different Elsie who had cut the images out with her mother’s sewing scissors. She felt, with every reluctant step, farther and farther from her real self.

The dread set in as she watched another winged seed pod float away. _ I’m going to die here, and Frances will be lost forever, and no one will find our bodies. The fairies will eat us up and that’s all we’ll ever know. _

She counted her steps as she walked. _ Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven _. When she reached three-hundred-and-two, she came across a fork in the path. One path led left, the other right; neither looked appealing. From the shrubbery, there came a rustling noise and out clambered a small man, perhaps the smallest man Elsie had ever seen, fairies notwithstanding.

“Hullo!” He seemed ordinarily cheerful and ordinarily plain, as though this were any other day in his ordinary life. He wore maroon dungarees and had shiny black boots. He didn’t look like a fairy, but this place was peculiar enough, she wasn’t sure what manner of person he might be.

She raised her branch.

“Oho! That’s uncalled for, don’t you think?”

Elsie gasped. She was normally quite appreciative of friendly strangers, but she was having a terrible day. “I’m sorry! I thought you were evil!”

The man shrugged, as though he heard that sort of thing often. “What was it that gave you that impression? My nascent good looks?”

She lowered her voice. “There are _ fairies _.”

“I should hope so too! This is their land after all.”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t come here willingly.”

“Who does?”

“They’ve kidnapped me.”

He nodded his head sagely and raised his eyebrows. Elsie was beginning to think that this man would be no help at all. Perhaps he was a fairy-sympathiser. 

“They are ones for a little light kidnapping I’m afraid.” He took off his floppy cap, rubbed the pale bald patch on his crown, and gestured to her weapon. “It’s nothing to get violent about, though!”

“That’s easy for you to say! They have my cousin still. She’s only eleven.”

“A delightful age.”

She stomped her foot. “Please, listen, they’ve kidnapped a _ child _.”

“Miss, with all due respect, you’re talking as though you’ve never met a fairy before.”

“I haven’t! We don’t usually have them in _ polite _society.”

“They don’t usually wander far from home. I wonder what it is that got them interested in you. There’s usually a reason.” He pulled a pipe from the large front pocket in his dungarees. He puffed on it thoughtfully, and raised an eyebrow at Elsie, as though he knew anyway. The smoke that he puffed out floated downwards and gathered around their feet in a thick cloud.

She shrugged, feeling too much all at once, the guilt of the photographs and the fear for her life, for her cousin, for having to tell the truth after all of it. “It was an accident,” she said in a small voice. 

“You’d be surprised how often we hear that.”

“Do you have anything _ helpful _to say?”

He replaced his cap with a look of mock-offence. “Knowledge costs around here.”

“What’s the currency?”

“For you… a kiss.”

Elsie raised her weapon again, preparing to strike him. _ The gall of him. Gnome or elf or half-fairy, whatever he is _.

He took a step backwards. “A kiss on the cheek. Not your first, surely?”

Not her first, but she wasn’t in the business of handing them out to strangers, even on a good day. Elsie grumbled. “I kiss you and you help me?”

“Indeed.”

She lowered her branch again, her arm aching with it. She approached him warily, from the side. This place was odd; she hoped kissing him didn’t sign some marriage pact or something else frightful like that. She puckered her lips and kissed the little creature on his red rosy cheek, as fast as she could.

“Wondrous!” He giggled. 

Elsie moved back a decent distance. “Now, my advice please.”

“Let’s see… I’ll give some truths, and one lie.”

“That’s not what we agreed.”

“It doesn’t matter what we agreed - that’s how things work around here. Now, your truths and your lie. It’s up to you to work out which is which. First, do not share your name. Second, do not trust your eyes. Third, eat nothing whilst you’re here. If you heed my advice, you’ll find the way home again.”

Elsie listened to his words and decided mentally to obey all of them. It couldn’t hurt to be especially cautious. 

“Now, are you done interrupting my walk?”

“I - um - I think so. You’ve been helpful.”

“And you’ve been _ lovely _. Do come find me if you’re ever in these parts again.”

“I sincerely doubt I ever will be, but thank you for the offer all the same. What was your name?”

He winked and pointed at her as he laughed. “Nice try.”

She thought of his first advice. “What is it about names anyway?”

“Around these parts, names are power. Names are _ politics _. Names are magic, do you understand?”

She groaned. Frances had cheerfully given their names to the very first fairy they’d chanced upon. “My cousin… she gave our names away.”

“Hmm, what a pity. And now you’re stuck here. She’ll think twice before doing that again.”

A shocked laugh spluttered from her mouth. “Mayhap. Goodbye, sir.”

“Good day!” He bowed in her direction and began plodding off down the path that Elsie had recently trod, leaving her standing there alone, utterly perplexed at the whole situation. She looked at both paths before her - left or right, they seemed the same. She ought to have asked him for directions, but she wasn’t certain of her destination, and she didn’t much fancy giving him another kiss.

She closed her eyes. Mother always said that the world could guide you if you knew how to let it. Gravity, or the warp of a river when you’re ankle-deep in the water. Mother said the world had its way of letting you know what it wanted from you, like God. Elsie could not help but feel the world had abandoned her here. She breathed slow and steady. _ Left _ , she thought, out of the blue. _ Go left _.

She walked due left for several hundred more steps, until she approached a hulking oak blocking the path. Between its gnarled roots was an opening through which Elsie could see faint light, starlight or moonlight perhaps, and the more she looked the more she saw until she could see quite clearly a figure lying on a downed tree trunk. Frances, she realised. 

“Hey!” she whispered, and crept closer to the gap in the roots. A mouse twice the usual size skittered across it. She stepped aside to let it run past her. “Can you hear me?” The gap in the roots was perhaps two feet wide, large enough for her to crawl through if she wanted. She was awful claustrophobic, but she could do it if it meant getting to Fran.

She thought of the man’s second advice. _ Do not trust your eyes _ . It must be a trick. It must be. But… _ Frances _. So near, and looking so small and lost. She almost called her cousin’s name, before she remembered his first piece of advice. She wondered if it applied to other people’s names, but she wasn’t keen on finding out. “Hey, cousin! Wake up, please.”

The gap in the roots was lit from within by a gibbous moon, and Frances’s hair was arranged about her like a halo. She gave no sign that she had heard Elsie.

That voice, that high-pitched strained voice, appeared in her head again. Thirsk.

“Can you see your cousin is yet alive? The breath yet tumbles from her fair lips? Now off you go, to see to our request - the light of her life is soon to be eclipsed.”

The moon lightening the gap vanished into nothingness, and then Elsie was standing in the clearing where she had first started out, and Frances was nowhere again, as though the past few moments had never happened at all. She lifted her hand, looking for the tree slime to check it was still there, but her palms were empty, the back of her dress still clean.

She screamed, up into the open air. “Let me go! If I promise to do as you ask, will you let me go?”

_ Yes _ said the leaves. The toadstools that bloomed around the tree roots waved at her. An acorn dislodged and flew past her ear on its way into the sky. Everything was dark and she felt her hair rising to follow the acorn, and then her arms, her legs, her whole helpless body, until she gasped to realise she was standing ankle-deep in the stream behind her garden. A housemartin had alighted to take a sip and it looked at her, startled, then rejoined the sky’s procession.

The sun hurt her eyes. The water had soaked up a few inches of her dress and her feet were cold and wrinkled, as though she had been in the water for hours. She shivered, and jumped out with a start, glad to feel the warm grass on her skin. She slipped her wet feet back into her shoes and was off with a yelp, up through the garden and into the house, calling for her parents, for anyone that would listen.

“The photographs were fake! We made the fairies up! I’m sorry we did it, but we did, and that’s the truth! Mother! Where are you?”

The house was dark, though it was scarcely noon. The place was empty, eerie and still, and it was as if it had been empty for quite some time. When they left, mother had been baking soda bread in the kitchen, but the oven was cold, and the table was bare, and everything was silent. Toadstools crept up the skirting board in the corner of the room, and the wallpaper was curling with damp.

“Mother?” But she knew, as sure as she knew anything, that this was not her home. “Let me go! I know it’s a trick. I’ve already agreed, why won’t you let me go?”

An answer, a chorus on the wind, whistling through the open window. “Eat ye a choice of fruits and sweets my child? Wilt ye eat or drink? Eat ye of fresh bread? Drink ye juice or water mild - eat else ye be dead.”

A kitchen cupboard was blown open by the wind and a tower of green apples fell forth, tumbling onto the waiting table, which bloomed with cakes the likes of which she could only dream - lemon cakes and blackberry crumble and fresh soft shortbread, the scent of it all filling her nose. It smelled divine, and Elsie reached out to touch the warm plates that were laden with food. Her fingers got sticky with the sugar and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to reach out and eat something, and she was so very hungry, and the blackberries looked just ripe enough. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled, but she remembered the odd little man’s third piece of advice.

The voice in her head got louder. “Now wilt ye be our tithe, sweet child, and stay? And wilt ye eat, for we’ve a debt to pay?”

“I’m not hungry,” she lied. She quietly spat the words through clenched teeth.

“If you do not your cousin will suffice - for we are overdue a devil’s bargain.” Every word she heard was poison.

Outside the window, the sky clouded over and the sun went out. 

“Let me be! I’m not your tithe or anything. I just want to go home. I’ve said sorry, and my cousin will too. I’ll make sure of it if you’d just let us go!”

_ No, _ said the growing-toadstool in the far corner.

Elsie ran back into the hallway and called up the stairs. “Mother! Father!” The maroon carpet lining the steps was curling up around the edges, a black not-quite-liquid seeping from underneath. _ Do not trust your eyes. _ “Please!”

_ No _said the swinging light fixture.

Elsie placed her hands over her ears and thought, madly, of a holiday they’d taken, not four years ago, to Whitby. It had been Father’s idea. An after-dusk visit to the ghost-laden Whitby Abbey and Elsie had had nightmares for several weeks after. She grimaced now to think that there were scarier things, and _ realer _ things. She listened to the blood rushing in her ears, over and over, blocking out that terrible voice.

_ Eat _ said the letterbox as it rattled in the wind. _ Drink _said the wobble of the photo frames that lined the hall. 

“No, no, no! I won’t! You can’t force me -” and she gasped. _ They can’t force me _. They could frighten her all they wanted, but they couldn’t force her one bit, else they would have done already. “I’ll never eat. You’ll never get me to be your debt. Never! And neither will my cousin!”

All at once, the world went muted. The features of the house stopped shaking and rattling and that horrible screeching voice disappeared from her head, leaving an almighty silence in its wake. Elsie crouched down, fearing what awful thing was coming next. She waited and waited until she heard hurried footsteps.

She blinked and the black ooze disappeared; the picture frames moved back into place; the letterbox blew shut with a final crack. The front door opened and her mother came in, a look of pleasant surprise on her face.

“El, darling!”

“Mama?”

“Whatever are you doing on the floor? I thought you were out with Fran?”

Elsie straightened up, the bones of her corset itching against her hips. “I was…” She closed her eyes. _ Don’t trust your eyes _. “Mama, I’m not terribly sure whether you’re real or not.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Is this one of your games?”

She laughed, a tiny fluttering of breath. “Yes. Of course!” She smoothed down the wooden togs of her dress. “Mother, you know those photographs are fakes?”

Her mother scowled. “Are they? That’s a shame.”

“That’s all? You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“We deceived you, and now you’ve gone and told your theosophy friends.”

“I’m not mad. It’s fine.”

“Really?” She laughed, the secret out and over with. It felt funny, to admit it after everything. A weight came loose in her stomach.

Her mother walked past her into the kitchen, her curled hair bobbing with every step. She patted Elsie placidly on the shoulder as she passed. “Are you hungry, dear?”

“Hungry? No. I’m tired. Aren’t you going to ask me where Frances is?”

Her mother blandly nodded, somewhat disjointed. “Yes, dear. Where is she?”

_ I don’t know _ , Elsie thought, _ she’s still lost _. She frowned. “Mother, are you ok?”

Her mother touched the waxed wood tabletop with jerky hands. Her face was completely empty, her eyes wide and devoid, a blank slate of a woman. “Yes, dear.”

Elsie backed herself towards the rear door which swung ajar and let in the occasional bird twitter from outside. This wasn’t right; none of it was proper. Her mother was _ wrong _, the house was wrong, the air felt stale and enclosed.

“I’ll be back soon, mother, all right?”

“Fine, dear.”

Elsie ran down the garden and kicked a stone as she went, and the pain felt so sharp and sudden, it had to be real. The strange little man had mentioned nothing about whether or not to trust her other senses and none of it felt right. She hopped across the flowerbeds and through the gap in the garden fence, down to the stream that was bubbling along as ever. She kicked off her shoes and jumped up and down in the water, yelling at the sky.

She waved her hands above her head, beckoning one and all. _ Names are power. _ “Thirsk!” she called. “Thirsk, listen here. You’re not fooling me, I know it’s not right. Take me home! I’ll do whatever you ask. Thirsk!”

The juniper tree shuffled somewhat, and out flew a tiny little figurine, its blue skin shimmering in the early afternoon sun. Its voice, a poison inside her head, was a high shriek on the crisp air. “Human girl of Cottingley, listen now. You have met our kind, and seen much of our world besides, the good and bad.”

“I met a strange little man. He promised me I’d be able to go home if I listened to his advice.” And she had listened, she’d been mindful the entire time - surely, they could not fault her? 

“He promised you truths and finally a lie. Did you consider: your freedom was the lie?”

The water of the beck got icy cold.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time writing anything remotely RPF and honestly I don't know how I feel about it. This fic was a labour of love. I've loved this weird story for quite some time, and was pleasantly surprised to see it nominated for Yuletide!


End file.
